


Double Standards

by made_of_lions_and_wolves333



Series: Quarantine Entertainment (Random Fandoms) [4]
Category: Wizards of Waverly Place
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest, Jalex - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:20:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23939806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/made_of_lions_and_wolves333/pseuds/made_of_lions_and_wolves333
Summary: She is his parallel, his foil. But the lines that are to remain aligned and never cross still want to overlap in her mind some days.[ One-shot ]
Relationships: Alex Russo/Justin Russo
Series: Quarantine Entertainment (Random Fandoms) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725514
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Double Standards

Alex grows up on double standards. She learns very early on in life acting stubborn and a bit selfish had its perks. Between always being _second_ in line, and her parents bringing home yet another baby they really didn’t _need_ , she had to cope with being the middle child somehow.

And it worked itself out more or less. It didn’t really bother her, probably not in the way that it would bother others — until, high school happened.

That’s when she notices how much of a screw-ball she’s been. She comes to realize the only reason she had trouble with boundaries and rules, is because she dismissed them and ignored them for so long. She didn’t _teach_ herself to have any real boundaries. She wanted to do things her way, at her own pace, and so she did.

Because she had convinced herself that magic wasn’t the problem… no, it was all the _morals_ that made things messy. The less she purposely did for others, the better off she’d be. Less ties, less tangles. That’s what she had hoped, really.

Alex wanted her freewill, but Heaven forbid Justin got to keep his. She wanted the freedom to choose Mason over her brothers — or any boy she desired, frankly — then again, when it came to Justin dating other girls in turn, it always turned into a bad thing. Alex had expected him to choose blood over those girls. She expected him to choose _her_ , be there for her like he always was every time she needed him, every time she called for him to fix her mistakes.

Then, there was the jungle. A shift in her heart, started in that jungle. She’s sure of it. They say that the wilderness can change a person, right? She can vouch for that now, since she knows how it is, being in the mercy of nature and racing against time to just win, to survive. She remembers the level of fear and desperation towards the end, the scare of her life that got to her. And the mental scar still remains.

She almost lost more than she had expected to. Her comforts, her home, and Justin.

She’s 89% certain that jungle has to be the main issue. That it has nothing to do with her flipping through that library book Harper forgot in her room due to being distracted by Zeke. And yes, she _can_ read, even though reading up on true events generally bored her. But hey, the book was about real bold mischievous women who made history doing things their way, including Lucrezia Borgia, and she can’t really say why that story stuck with her so long afterwards.

She’s done some deep thinking — the hard kind of thinking, the kind that keeps a girl up for hours during the night, and maybe, Alex has miraculously pieced together somewhat of a logical theory.

She’s concluded that the jungle itself was magic, it had a mind of its own. And it was testing her the whole time, to see if she _was_ worthy of her family’s prize in the end. And, it still affected her. Maybe it took something from her, out of her, and replaced it with something it _shouldn’t_ have. Or, it saw something in her she wasn’t ready to see herself, and the jungle took advantage of that. It could hear and smell her neediness, and all of that was suddenly amplified to a dangerous degree.

The jungle had ripped open a dam, and it just left her to bleed out. She tried fixing it, patching up the holes in her psyche in the only way she knew how, but too much was already let loose and she already saw the world around her differently than before that.

With Justin sitting close and comfortable, watching the sunset burn brightly ahead of them, she leans into his side slowly and gently, like she has done plenty of times before and she rests her chin on his shoulder. She calls him an idiot and despite himself, he smirks, trying not to laugh. Trying not to give in and indulge her. But he does, and she likes it. She does. It only makes her wonder where this is going to lead, one day. Something that feels so natural but it shouldn’t.

  
She is his parallel, his foil. But the lines that are to remain aligned and never cross still want to overlap in her mind some days. She knows, deep down, the bond they have already pulls them closer more often than it cuts them apart.

She slips out of her dorm with bare feet, away from Riley’s reach, quietly and fluidly. He snores too loud anyway.

She pads up to Justin’s bed lightly and grabs the covers, sliding in and she practically seats herself over him. He wakes abruptly, alerted by the movement. His hand is reaching out towards his wand lying nearby, but he sees it’s her and he stops, and relaxes for a second… although, this is still unusual for her so there’s confusion in his eyes too. Her arms fall around his shoulders, grabbing the base of his neck. She just wants his full attention.

“Alex. What’s wrong?”

“Kiss me?”

She feels him stiffen against her. He goes completely still, like the flick of a switch. “Say what now?” He doesn’t sound amused. But what else can she do to show she’s actually not pranking him?

“You heard me.”

He half-grimaces. “Why?”

“Because I’m asking politely and we both know I hate doing that. But I am.”

“Alex — ”

“— Justin, please, just — I can feel this thing. When I’m with you.” Justin says nothing. He only stares back at her, and so she quietly continues, “… And it isn’t going away like I thought it might. I’ve been trying to wrack my brain and figure out why now, or, was it always there? But I need to know if it’s just in my own head.”

“You don’t.”

“This concerns me, that’s why I’m asking. I dese — we deserve to know. It’s about you, too. Just do this for me once, tonight, and I’ll never ask you again. I swear.”

“And if I say no?” he grumbles cynically.

“Then I’ll keep asking until you try,” she says, flat out. And it seems to _hit_ him, fully, finally. She’s serious. She’s not playing some stupid game. “I’m good at pretending not to feel things I really do. So I’ll keep suppressing it and go back to ignoring and denying it for a while… but one day, if it’s still there in the future, I’ll ask you again.”

“Alex, it’s the middle of the night. You’re not thinking straight.”

“Don’t think of it as crossing a line. Just… just think of it as a scientific experiment. To gather information. I know you. I know you’d like to say it’s way too complicated and there’s too many layers we shouldn’t even mess with… that it isn’t worth the trouble. But, it really _isn’t_ that complicated. It simply boils down to yes or no. It’s either natural or supernatural.”

“What?”

“Maybe it is my fault. I admit that. Maybe I did break one too many rules and now karma is finally catching up to me. After all the magic I used when you told me not to, maybe that shifted something in the balance, and it left behind a magical residue that latched onto us in a really twisted way. I couldn’t think of any other reason. This is the only way to know for sure.”

He waits, swallows hard, and asks her, “And if it’s not? Then what?”

Her eyes fall to his mouth momentarily. “Not what?”

“What if it’s not what you think it is? What if it’s not magical?”

Alex wets her lips, quickly. “Then that’s something I’ll worry about tomorrow...”

“Dammit, Alex.” 

The thing is, they knew for all his intelligence and integrity, he’s never been able to deny her anything in the end of things.


End file.
